Stuck » h.s. (UNDER EDITING)

ten

I carefully slip out of my dorm room, rushing down the hall and bursting through the doors.

I look around. There's no one in the area besides a couple of boys probably too high to notice anything. Smoke is circling around them and I can smell the weed from over here.

They're going to get kicked out.

How did they even get in?

"You're a bit late, sweetheart. I was beginning to think you'd be a no-show."

The smell of stale tobacco and liquor surrounds me and I almost choke.

"I'm here, Shawn. What do you want?"

He smiles, his eyes trailing down my hardly covered body. I didn't even think to grab a robe or anything. I just ran out here in my pajamas.

"I have to give you something of course. The torture is beginning." His breath is horrid and it makes me want to gag or stop breathing.

"What if I just call the cops on you?" I threaten, gripping my hands together so hard my knuckles begin to turn white.

That menacing cackle leaves his mouth and the sound makes my insides freeze.

"Don't you think I've thought this through already? If I get put in jail, there's plenty of other people who work for me that you don't know of. They will make sure you die if that happens, and everyone you love."

Wow. I really am screwed.

"Why are you doing this?" I say with my eyes closed.

"You'll know every single reason by the time I'm ready for you to die, Miss Emma. I've given you the gist. Olivia. What you did to me. All the things you've done," he walks back and forth in front of me, my heart rate speeding up with each step he takes.

My eyes burn and my lips quivers.

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep me from doing or saying something I'll regret.

"What happened to Olivia wasn't my fault for the hundredth time, Shawn," his name tastes sour in my mouth and just completely wrong.

"I don't believe you, Miss Emma."

I try to take a step back but his eyes have me frozen in place.

"Reason number one," he steps forward, grabbing my hand and placing a CD in it.

"Watch it. You'll have reason number one."

I want to scream and cry and punch someone all at the same time.

The things I actually did do to Shawn weren't that bad. I can't think of anything he'd want to kill me for except for Olivia, but I had absolutely nothing to do with that.

God how I wish she was still here to back me up on it.

Shawn has to be misunderstanding a lot of things. I fooled around with a couple of his friends, but I don't see what his reasoning behind any of this is. And after he gives me all of his "reasons," it still probably won't make any damned sense whatsoever.

There's nothing I did that was so terrible.

At least, nothing I can remember.

I was drunk for basically four and a half years, so there's not much I remember anyways. Half of the time, I was in a different world or drugged. I can't really remember much.

I must've done something awful, which scares the shit out of me.

Actually, Shawn overreacts. Always has and probably always will. I don't think there's anything I could've done, drunk or sober, that would've made him so determined to murder me. That's the action of taking someone's life. They're naturally given right. The right to life.